This type of pottery is known as Delftware because the most famous center of production for such blue-and-white TIN-GLAZED EARTHENWARE was the town of Delft, in Holland. In the seventeenth century Holland established the Dutch East India Company to trade with the Far East, supplying Europeans with much-loved Chinese PORCELAIN. Chinese factories began to make porcelain objects, or "china," especially for the European market. The port of Canton, famous for blue-and-white ware, was one of the most important producers of this "export porcelain," as it is called. Both Dutch and English manufacturers wanted to copy these popular Chinese objects but did not know the secret of making porcelain. So they made imitations in tin-glazed earthenware.